Chapter XXV.—Of the causes which
separated the Eunomians from the Arians.

Eunomius in his writings praises Aetius, styles him a man of God, and
honours him with many compliments. Yet he was at that time closely
associated with the party by whom Aetius had been repudiated, and to
them he owed his election to his bishopric.

Now the followers of Eudoxius
and Acacius, who had assented to the decrees put forth at Nice in
Thrace, already mentioned in this history, appointed other bishops in
the churches of the adherents of Basilius and Eleusius in their stead.
On other points I think it superfluous to write in detail. I purpose
only to relate what concerns Eunomius.

For when Eunomius had seized on
the see of Cyzicus in the lifetime of Eleusius, Eudoxius urged him to
hide his opinions and not make them known to the party who were seeking
a pretext to persecute him. Eudoxius was moved to offer this advice
both by his knowledge that the diocese was sound in the faith and his
experience of the anger manifested by Constantius against the party who
asserted the only begotten Son of God to be a created being. “Let
us” said he to Eunomius “bide our time; when it comes we
will preach what now we are keeping dark; educate the ignorant; and win
over or compel or punish our opponents.” Eunomius, yielding to
these suggestions, propounded his impious doctrine under the shadow of
obscurity. Those of his hearers who had been nurtured on the divine
oracles saw clearly that his utterances concealed under their surface a
foul fester of error.581581 On
the picturesque word ὕπουλος cf.
Hipp: XXI, 32; Plat: Gorg. 518 E. and the well-known passage in the
Œd: Tyrannus (1396) where Œdipus speaks of the promise of his
youth as “a fair outside all fraught with ills
below.”

But however distressed they were
they considered it less the part of prudence than of rashness to make
any open protest, so they assumed a mask of heretical heterodoxy, and
paid a visit to the bishop at his private residence with the earnest
request that he would have regard to the distress of men borne hither
and thither by different doctrines, and would plainly expound the
truth. Eunomius thus emboldened declared the sentiments which he
secretly held. The deputation then went on to remark that it was unfair
and indeed quite wrong for the whole of his diocese to be prevented
from having their share of the truth. By these and similar arguments he
was induced to lay bare his blasphemy in the public assemblies of the
church. Then his opponents hurried with angry fervour to
Constantinople; first they indicted him before Eudoxius, and when
Eudoxius refused to see them, sought an audience of the emperor and
made lamentation over the ruin their bishop was wreaking among them.
“The sermons of Eunomius,” they said, “are more
impious than the blasphemies of Arius.” The wrath of Constantius
was roused, and he commanded Eudoxius to send for Eunomius, and, on his
conviction, to strip him of his bishopric. Eudoxius, of course, though
again and again importuned by the accusers, continued to delay taking
action. Then once more they approached the emperor with vociferous
complaints that Eudoxius had not obeyed the imperial commands in any
single particular, and was perfectly indifferent to the delivery of an
important city to the blasphemies of Eunomius. Then said Constantius to
Eudoxius, if you do not fetch Eunomius and try him, and on conviction
of the charges brought against him, punish him, I shall exile you. This
threat frightened Eudoxius, so he wrote to Eunomius to escape from
Cyzicus, and told him he had only himself to blame because he had not
followed the hints given him. Eunomius accordingly withdrew in alarm,
but he could not endure the disgrace, and endeavoured to fix the guilt
of his betrayal on Eudoxius, maintaining that both he and Aetius had
been cruelly treated. And from that time he set up a sect of his own
for all the men who were of his way of thinking and condemned his
betrayal, separated from Eudoxius and joined with Eunomius, whose name
they bear up to this day. So Eunomius became the founder of a heresy,
and added to the blasphemy of Arius by his own peculiar guilt. He set
up a sect of his own because he was a slave to his ambition, as the
facts distinctly prove. For when Aetius was condemned and exiled,
Eunomius 91refused to accompany him, though he called him his master and a
man of God, but remained closely associated with Eudoxius.

But when his turn came he paid
the penalty of his iniquity; he did not submit to the vote of the
synod, but began to ordain bishops and presbyters, though himself
deprived of his episcopal rank. These then were the deeds done at
Constantinople.

581 On
the picturesque word ὕπουλος cf.
Hipp: XXI, 32; Plat: Gorg. 518 E. and the well-known passage in the
Œd: Tyrannus (1396) where Œdipus speaks of the promise of his
youth as “a fair outside all fraught with ills
below.”